Insanity Asylum Review: Game Day

So you’ve been training with Shaun T for the last 10 days, your diet has been dialed in, you took the day off yesterday, and now its time for your first big GAME. Today’s Insanity Asylum Review is all about Game Day!

Are you in it to WIN it?

This is actually a FUN workout. It’s crazy hard, but it’s actually fun to go through. Shaun T is very motivating, and makes the experience as if you were in an actual game. Whatever sport you are playing, or set of drills, he puts you in the GAME. In the sporting event, you are in a competition, and you have to push yourself to win! There are a couple of obvious differences between this workout and all the others.

1. Insanity Asylum Game Day is 61 minutes. The other videos are under 45 minutes.

2. This has something from every other video. You’ll recognize moves from Speed & Agility, Strength, Back to Core, and Vertical Plyo. (Click the links to read those reviews). There are also some new moves or variations to keep it interesting.

3. At the end of each race or sports drill, you do get time for some water. Other workouts push you at a faster pace, from start to finish. While this is still a challenging workout, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to take those quick “well earned” breaks.

So let’s jump into the Insanity Asylum Game Day Review:

As stated the clock starts out at nearly 61 minutes. My heart skipped a beat, as I had a quick vision of what the next hour was going to be like for me. I recovered quickly and got right into the warm up.

The warm up wasn’t terrible, which lasted just over 3 minutes. I was imagining a quick start in true Shaun T fashion, but it was more of a medium warm up. Similar to one you might see on actual game day, saving some strength and energy for the big game. The warm up exercises were: In & Out Agility, Agility Split Squat Touch, Agility Dual Hop with Jump, about 1 minute each.

The stretch followed and continued for about 2 minutes or so, and then you got right into the workout, which consists of various sporting events, I’ll cover each event in detail.

The workout begins with 55 minutes on the timer. The first sporting event is TRACK.

1 Mile Race. 6.5 minutes. During this time, you will never stop running, but you will transition into several various running patterns, such as: high knee run, up hill climb, down hill butt kicks, steep hill climb, high knee run, sprint to the finish line. What an AWESOME run. Follow that up with a 1 minute water break.

Other events during TRACK: 100 Meter Agility Dash and Competitive Long Jump. Each last just over 1 minute, and a short water break in between.

The second sporting event is BASKETBALL.

Each event lasts 1 minute. Fake Out Lay Up and Daikeler Jump Shot. Again short water breaks in between each event.

The third event is WRESTLING.

I never caught a name for this wrestling move, but its a strength exercise that last 2 minutes, and at this point it’s safe to say that you get a water break after every event. As I stated earlier, it’s nice to get those breaks, because you are going “all out” for that event. I started to lose some steam halfway through this wrestling move, it was tough.

The fourth event is SOCCER.

You start with Soccer Kicks. It’s a pyramid style exercise. Starting with 1 kick. Then setup and 2 kicks…. setup 3 kicks…. all the way to 8.

Next is a BIG cardio move called Juggle. At the end of 1 minute you go back to Soccer Kicks for another set of 8, then back to Juggle. Soccer in general was a monster. The Juggle Kicks took some effort, okay… a lot of effort. Shaun T tells you on the Juggle, he doesn’t care how slow you move, just keep moving.

The fifth event is TENNIS.

Two events in Tennis, Forehand/Backhand and Volley/Overhead, each lasting 1 minute, water in between.

The sixth event is ICE SKATING.

This is a 3 minute exercise, that combines speed and power. If you hit the speed hard, you’ll really start to feel this move. About 1 minute in, I knew I was in for a real treat. 🙂

The seventh event is SWIMMING.

Starting with a 100 Meter Breast Stroke which is a 2 minute event. This move is where Back to Core comes in. It’s a tough 2 minutes, but if you stop swimming you might drown. lol. The second event is called Ride the Wave, and is a surfing type exercise. Paddle…ride the wave….paddle…..surf’s up! Water breaks in between each event.

The eighth event is FOOTBALL.

Only one event in Football, which is called Lineman’s Drill, and it’s a 2 minute event.

Number nine is ROCK CLIMBING.

You start with Rock Climbing Plank Jacks, which is a push up strength exercise for 1 minute. You follow that with either Rock Climbing Switch or Alternating Lat Push Ups and you will do this for 2 LONG minutes. Water water water, and then right into Rock Climbing Push Ups for 1 minute. Then the best part of the whole Rock Climbing event is….. you REPEAT the Rock Climbing or Lat Push Ups for 2 more minutes. Yikes! This killed me, absolutely was a monster event, it’s all about strength. Back to water WATER water. I have to say that, because I needed a lot of WATER!

Lucky number TEN and LAST event is BASEBALL.

Starting with The Pitch, and lasts for 2 minutes. The last move of the whole Game Day workout was called Batter Up. It was a monster cardio move that lasted for 1 minute, and drained every last ounce of energy I had left. I was so thrilled to be at the cooldown and stretch, which was a short 3 minutes. I opted to stay on the stretch for another 4-5 minutes.

Summary:

While this was a tough workout, as all of the Insanity Asylum workouts are, it was a fun workout. As I stated in the very beginning, Shaun does an excellent job of motivating you, and demonstrating each exercise. You have a lot of variety, which makes it super interesting, and you burn some calories. By far the most calories of any Asylum workout, but again, its 60 minutes. You get frequent water breaks, which allows you to catch your breath and focus on the next event. All in all a great workout. At this point I have done all the Insanity Asylum workouts with the exception of the 15 minute OVERTIME workout. I can safely say that Vertical Plyo was by far the toughest workout, with this one coming in second. You’ll love and hate this workout, but will be so glad you did it.

How’d you do on Game Day? Post your comments below or join us on Facebook, we’d love to hear from other Asylum fans! Oh yea… Subscribe to my updates to the right, and please share with others if you liked my review. Thanks!

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2 Comments

Sidd on May 11, 2011 at 1:21 pm

dude Robert! Today was my first GAME DAY! excited after reading the review, even motivated more so than usual with nature presenting Nice Sunny , a little hot but pleasant day and I pushed play. What followed was exactly as you described a workout which is unique and fun(unlike any workout I’ve ever done) at same time tough, Tough, TOUGH! Robert , I barely got through after the Swimming even pushing my mind to the fullest. Your comments on pushing the mind helped so much that I’ve reached a new level yet this work has shown me that I could be well lets say There much to be conquered. This is most fun work out there is in my personal opinion and your website brother has the most guidance there is …I had to come and comment because even after reviewing the video last night, your comments gave me a human perspective which is priceless and while your review conveys your fitness levels it gives me and yet other people out there inspiration that we are ready to reach a higher level….p.s. i am looking forward to your new fit test results, I am going to beat them…. lol….

I’m thrilled you enjoy the reviews, and Game Day is a MONSTER workout. I just finished it again yesterday. Super tough as always, but always fun switching from sport to sport. I have my last Fit Test in 4 days. Hard to believe that 30 days of Asylum is right around the corner. I’ll be doing the Asylum/P90X rotation next. Have a good weekend! P.S. I hope you do beat my Fit Test, especially if I inspired you enough to get you higher numbers. 🙂